Tex

Will went in to the hospital in the middle of the night on Wednesday and commented to me that Tex never got up to greet him when he left or when he got home.  He didn't act particularly pitiful on Thursday morning so I didn't think anything else about it.  I had lunch with a dear friend who I used to work with at Heathwood and got home about 2:15 Thursday afternoon.  When I let Tex out of his crate, I noticed that he had vomited in his crate.  Figured he had just eaten too fast and went about cleaning things up.  Then, our neighbor called to see if Tex could play with Skittle.  When I asked if he wanted to play with Skit (which usually elicits tearing from wherever he is and heading straight to the back door with his tail wagging), he just looked at me.  Then he went outside and threw up again.

I had to pick Olivia up from school so I left Tex out of his crate so that he could get outside if he needed to.  He was still outside, not far from where I left him, when we got home.  Later in the afternoon, I couldn't find him anywhere in the house.  Finally found him outside and he just looked so pitiful.

At that point, he was still drinking water and then throwing up.  Eventually, the diarrhea started (only I didn't know that it was diarrhea, I just saw something coming from that end, was reminded of Murphy's last days and went into panic-mode!).   Tex could barely hold himself up.  Will was late getting home, but called and got a distraught wife with a crying child in the background. 

As soon as Will got home, he loaded Tex into the car and took him to the emergency vet hospital (after some consultation with Tupp and his sister, Sally, who is in vet school at UGA).  Anyway, Tex got some IV fluids and had a negative parvo test (with an aside that it's not unusual to have a neg test followed by a positive test 24 hours later).  Will and Tex finally got home around 11pm with another bag of fluids.  We figured McIver wouldn't mind if we used his lamp as the stand for the IV bag.

Tex barely even watched what was going on.  He was just so lethargic - and the diarrhea continued which did not bode well for getting a good night's sleep.  (And, don't forget that Will had already had a rough call night the night before.)

We were glad to see that he had a little bit more energy this morning - enough to get to the water bowl.  Will put him in the tub to get him cleaned up.  He also managed to get downstairs and out to the dogrun to go potty.

I had to go to school this morning and couldn't get him to the vet until around 11am.  The vet called to let us know they wanted to keep him overnight to continue with the fluids.  The diarrhea had started to subside and he was perking up a little bit.  Still no word on the actual cause of the illness but he suspects some sort of virus.  We can pick him up tomorrow morning.  We all can't wait to see our little guy. It's so quiet and still without him around.  We love you, Tex!!